McManus: Government Hiring Grows as Private Sector Employment Shrinks

by John F. McManus

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

Over the past six years, federal, state and local governments have hired at a near record pace while huge losses in the private sector are being recorded. The nation is speeding toward total government and our leaders seem to ignore this frightening reality.

Follow this link to the original source: “Hiring leaps in public sector [1]“

COMMENTARY:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the first three months of 2008 recorded the fastest growth in government hiring in six years. The previous high occurred in the months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

During this same period, according to the BLS, private firms cut 286,000 Americans from jobs they previously held. The federal agency compiling these figures claimed that figures for the month of April demonstrate that both of these trends are continuing.

North Carolina State University economics professor Michael Walden doesn’t believe this report points to any problem. “Government jobs are an important cushion for the economy when the private sector falters,” he commented. Perhaps he would rather have everyone working for government, as everyone once did in Soviet Russia and as millions always do in totalitarian states. His job, of course, is safe because he is employed in a government institution.

It can’t be said too often that wealth is productivity and government produces nothing. Mostly, government inhibits productivity. Hiring more government workers when the number of manufacturing jobs is shrinking is suicidal.

President Bush frequently insists that our nation is “in a slowdown, not a recession.” Call it whatever you want, the fact remains that manufacturing continues to decline, the dollar’s slide hasn’t stopped, imports outnumber exports, and deficit spending and borrowing at the federal level continues apace.

Mr. Bush also claims that because the nation emerged from the Great Depression of the 1930s, it can similarly weather the current economic malaise. But 70 years ago, the U.S. was the world’s leader in manufacturing and the world’s largest creditor nation. Today, our manufacturing base is leaving (even being sent away gleefully by greedy corporate executives) and the U.S. is the world’s greatest debtor nation. Huge amounts of tax revenue must to be spent for interest payments, and much of it goes to foreign governments like China and Japan.

In short, both freedom for the American people and independence for this nation are in serious jeopardy. Hiring more government workers isn’t the answer. Shouldn’t less government be tried?

Center for Moral Liberalism contributing editor, John F. McManus, is President of The John Birch Society, and publisher of The New American.